


Broken Apart

by DivineJoker



Category: Terra Nova
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-04
Updated: 2012-03-04
Packaged: 2017-11-01 02:52:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivineJoker/pseuds/DivineJoker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She may be lost, but she knows exactly where she’s heading.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Apart

**Author's Note:**

> Finale Fix-It, Friday Fic Challenge. This is my contribution, since I just spent the last two weeks working through the entire library of Wash/Taylor fic in this comm. I’ve taken some prompts from Friday Fic Challenge Week 8 and some from triciabyrne1978, to whom I owe beta kudos!

FAITH:

He remembers staring into the fire; the flickering flames random and intense, not so unlike his second. He remembers thinking that if Wash had been there beside him, she’d have been complaining that the fires were too big, the noise of the camp too loud for them to be safe from Phoenix and Lucas. He remembers that, even after Ayani died and it was just him and Lucas, Wash had had faith that everything would be all right.

He remembers faith being an intangible, incredible thing. It was something that Wash had had a lot of.

He remembers the burning in his eyes (from the smoke) at the thought that she wouldn’t be telling him to have faith anymore.

He swallows thickly as the looming gates of Terra Nova open as they approach; he knows that he’s going to be having a hard time of it for the next few weeks, getting used to the gaping hole at (in) his side. He knows that he’s going to have to remind himself that everything would be all right; time would heal him, the colony.

He has a future to prepare for as he sees Zoe Shannon slip into the gathered crowd and meet her little friends; a future he has to protect, a duty to make it flourish.

He has some faith in himself – if somewhat dinged and damaged – that he, with everyone else, would be able to continue the fight that Wash had stood for when she had looked down the barrel of Lucas’ gun.

And maybe the colony would have enough faith together to make up for the whole left by her absence.

DREAMS:

She’s dreaming. She knows she is, but it’s something that she’ll gladly take, knowing the reality that awaits her.

In her dream, she’s sitting on the edge of Foster Pond, the pond named after that obsequious little ichthyologist that found their oxygen sucking monster leeches in the same pond. For obvious reasons, she doesn’t want to swim in the pond, but it’s still breath taking to sit by in the early morning light.

Over her shoulder, she can see the gates of Terra Nova standing open and inviting; clue one that it’s a dream because you can’t see Foster Pond from Terra Nova, it’s almost a full day’s ride from the colony. But she squints and see’s something different about it, something new and intriguing.

It’s not Terra Nova that she’s looking at. The gates are smaller, there is no Command center looming just past the threshold and the military presence is somewhat limited. There are children laughing at her in the sunlight; no, not at her but with her, as she allows a release of joy from her gut.

She’s never felt so light, so *alive*...

Her eyes snap open to the rough interior of a canvas tent and the smothering heat of a Badlands afternoon.

STRUGGLE:

As he knew it would be, the first few days are nearly impossible. He’s never been a drinking man, and he knows that even if he started it would be a slippery slope to not fall down. Instead he buries himself in the physical work of repairing the damage to the colony. There are plenty of explosion craters that need to be cleared, shell holes that need to be fixed. For the irony of Phoenix leaving the ashes instead of rising from them, Taylor knows that the burning muscles he has by the end of the fifth day are a sign of his own rebirth.

Shannon is invaluable; Guzman takes on more than what is called for and even Reynolds has a romance on hold to help keep everyone’s attention on the rebuilding instead of the loss and terror that had shadowed their last few weeks in Terra Nova.

More often than not, Taylor finds himself stuck in his office signing requisitions, answering questions and generally allaying fears and worries.

On the evening of the sixth day, a small shuffle at his doorway alerts him to a visitor and he finds Zoe Shannon standing in his doorway.

“How may I help you, Miss Zoe?”

She folds her hands behind her back and looks up at him from beneath her eyelashes. From outside the doorframe, where Taylor can’t see, comes a low whisper.

“Permission to approach, Commander Taylor.”

Taylor smiles at the little girl and gestures her to come towards the desk, even as he rises and moves to the front. He settles back on his haunches so that he can see her eyes.

She watches him again for another few moments and then, unexpectedly reaches forwards and hugs him around his neck. The affection, so freely given is surprising to him; the battle hardened soldier who has seen children her age wielding guns in defence of their homes. He closes his eyes for a long moment, absorbing the human contact, so unconditionally offered. He can see Wash in his mind, covering her mouth with her hand; covering her smile.

He misses that smile.

He looks up to see Jim standing in the doorway with a smile on his face and Taylor stands up, taking Zoe with him.

“Elisabeth would like to see you at dinner.” 

It’s not so much a request as an order; one he doesn’t mind obeying.

He looks to the youngest Shannon sitting silently in his arms and knows that the burden of Terra Nova won’t be such a struggle to carry.

“Tell her that I would love to see her there.”

TENSION:

She’s under scrutiny. It’s intense but not overly thorough. She can find cracks in the surveillance, holes in their defences. She doesn’t want it to take as long as it has, but she’s knows that if she waits any longer, she won’t be able to make it back across the Badlands. And she has too.

He dream has been plaguing her nightly, making her sleeping both dreaded and extremely restful. Every night there’s something new, something amazing and hopeful and true and...

She must get back to Terra Nova.

Another reason for escape is the growing tension between Lucas and the Phoenix ranks. It’s partly to blame for the lax attention paid to her. She’s no longer Terra Nova’s second in command, she’s a POW; an anonymous face that someone has to care for and guard. She’s a waste of space; and sooner or later, wasted space needs to be cleaned out.

She takes a chance one night that pays off. The guard is willing to let her go to the bathroom and gives her his entire canteen from which to take a drink from. It’s mercifully full, as well as the second one that he’s wearing at his waist; which she finds when he’s unconscious on the ground ten seconds later. 

In the dark of the desert, white stands out like a beacon, so she slips his coat off and stuffs the pockets with everything that she can find in her seconds long search.

She has to go now.

She can’t afford to use the gun, so she’s relying on her fingers – which could, in all likelihood, be deadlier than the gun at her waist – and the element of surprise.

She knows that if they don’t notice her gone in the next ten minutes, she’ll be free and clear to make it to the forest – at the very least. And if they can’t find her, then God help the poor soul that let her get away, because the tension that’s been brewing is sure well to explode in his face.

She couldn’t care less.

BLINDED:

Shannon finally convinces him to go OTG for more than a couple of hours late the next week. It’s a simple routine check to one of the outposts to the North West, the last outpost to see the retreating Phoenix group. No one’s been out there since they’ve taken the colony back, so it needs to be verified and Shannon thinks that Taylor would be the perfect man for the job. Taylor says not immediately, but within the next week.

It’s been long enough that there’s very little possibility of find anything straggling this way, regardless of their last direction. 

So two and a half weeks after coming home, Taylor and Shannon hop into a Rhino and take it for a jaunt through Slasher territory, skirt the boundary of Carno-land and slither right through a group of munching Brachiosaurus.

Taylor can’t help but reflect that this would have been something that he would have done with Wash. It was exactly her kind of thing to drive recklessly through the jungle, avoiding flesh eating dinosaurs with strictly the speed of your vehicle.

Shannon doesn’t seem to share the same type of flair, or they would have taken a rover.

He knows that the colony has been watching him; doing what they can for him. But he has never been one to wallow; he chose to swallow his pain and use it, burn it, turn it into constructive training or maintenance or...

Keeping busy kept his mind of the reality of the missing part of his life; the hole that she had filled for over fifteen years. And the longer he functioned – or tried to function – without her, the more he realized what it was she did for him.

She has been his buffer. So often in the last two weeks, his soldiers had come to him with questions that were prefaced with, “The Lieutenant normally...” or “I would ask Wash...” or any other countless, mundane realities.

If that had been her day to day, why did she put up with it? What had been her reward for answering the monotonous questions and requests? Why did she do that so that he could do what he did?

Why did she never tell him?

Jim slid the Rhino to a stop just as Taylor understood what it was that Wash got out of it. The looks that she would give him when he talked with some of the vendors in the market; the smiles she’s share over the little heads of children when they wanted to share something with him.

He knew that he would have been a bear in those situations if he’d been faced with boring questions all day; he wouldn’t have been the leader that she wanted him to be. So she had borne the burden of second with aplomb, getting her satisfaction with him...

She was in love with him...

... She had been in love with him.

“Taylor?”

He’d been so blinded by her loyalty to him that he had never contemplated the emotions behind it.

He stumbled to his knees next to the mechanical beast and slanted to the side, resting on one arm as the other wrapped around his abdomen. Blood rushed into his ears as something snapped in his chest; a nearly physical breaking of his heart.

“Oh my God, Shannon.” Words burned in his throat and breath shuddered in and out of his lungs.

Jim seemed to realized that something had finally broken in him, but wasn’t entirely sure what to do about it. He stood helplessly to the side and watched with wide eyes.

Taylor looked up and met his gaze. “I loved her.”

LOST:

She’s been lucky so far. Sleeping in trees is not ideal – however, getting eaten by Slashers is also not ideal in a more final kind of way – so she’s exhausted and sloppy. She also has no idea where she is.

Being lost in 85 million BC is not really how she’d planned to spend the last few days, but it’s better than being Lucas’ prisoner, so she’ll take her lumps and make due.

She’s still haunted by her dreams, though. Although haunted would imply that she wakes up screaming (which is certainly not the case), she had startled awake that morning more much more severely than before and nearly fell from her perch. The latest addition to the dream is such that her heart was in her throat and her breathing was erratic with fear and anxiety.

But it made the dream that much more of a paradise.

She may be lost, but she knows exactly where she’s heading.

KISS:

It’s the worst kind of day. It’s cloudy and rainy and no one is willing to sit in the market and haggle for goods. Taylor stands on his balcony and watches the bedraggled colonist go about their business. The only life showing is slow and muddied.

Skye had sat with him for a bit earlier in the day helping him with some of his more trivial tasks. He’d enjoyed it, being able to sit so comfortably with her again. She knows, probably more than anyone – anyone other than Wash – that he’d been different since he’d come back from checking on the outpost. He’s been quiet and withdrawn; no longer a physical presence at the repairs, he does his best to show his men that he’s more than willing to be there to support them.

But it’s not the same.

Now, Skye is gone and sitting with her mother. Guzman is out, running the soldiers in the rain – because what better way to train than in the actual conditions? – and Shannon is babysitting Zoe.

He is physically and emotionally alone at the top.

He sighs heavily and allows stray raindrops to fall down his face without wiping them off. It’s cleansing, relaxing to have the cold water temper against his skin; a refreshing awareness of life continuing on.

It’s been slower and harder for him to adjust now that he knows who is missing and exactly why it’s such a hole in his life. But his life – even before Wash - has been littered with regrets and ‘what if’s’ that it’s nothing new to swallow his disappointment and continue on in the faith that the colony still needs to survive.

Blithely, he wanders down the step, he’s soaked by the time he reaches the platform but he pays it no mind. He walks to the front gate and leans his arms on the heavy beams. His gaze wanders the tree line across the open field and he sighs. 

He knows that there are things he needs to be doing, but the rain is killing his ethic and for one day, he’s going to stand and wallow – even though he’s never done it before, he knows that he’s doing a really good job of it.

He also knows that Wash would disapprove of it. That alone is what makes him sigh and stand straighter. 

He doesn’t wallow. He rests his forehead against his hands for a long moment and then straightens himself up, intent on going into his office and diving into the mountain of paperwork that has been waiting for his attention for the last week.

He catches movement out of the corner of his eyes and stops, searching the tree line for the source. It happens again and now it truly has his attention. He cocks his head, trying to decipher the movement; whether it’s beast or not.

When someone steps from the edges into his sight, he’s ordering up the gate and running through the rain; he’s nearly a hundred yards ahead of the next soldier but he skids to a stop when his thundering mind gathers enough intel to determine who it is.

“Wash?” His voice is thick and heavy, his heart preventing him from even saying the whole syllable in one tone.

She stares blankly at him for a long moment and then comments, “You’re soaked to the bone, sir.”

Taylor laughs incredulously because she is in exactly the same state as him. His emotions are in such turmoil that it’s almost a surprise when relief finally floods his system. His bleak reality of living the rest of his days for the good of the colony is highlighted by the new reality of having Wash there with him.

He’s acting before he knows it; an instinct not unlike pulling the trigger in a threatening situation, but he knows that he has to kiss her to be able to live through the next few minutes. His fingers wrap themselves into her wet hair and roughly pull her to him, crushing his mouth to hers. A surprised grunt issues on contact and for a fleeting moment she freezes against him.

It doesn’t take long for her fingers to grasp the cross piece of his holster and clutch against him for dear life. They taste each other for the first time as the rain comes down around them and tints their kiss.

They become aware of guns clattering against body armour and he steps back from her, her fingers still wrapped around the strap of his holster. They stare numbly at each other for a long moment as the soldiers try to understand what they are seeing, until Jim Shannon comes barrelling through the cluster and slides to a stop in the mud.

“Wash!”

Not ashamed of affection, Shannon grasps her and pulls her into a hug, lifting her bodily off of the ground – and the freeze is broken. Suddenly the entire throng of soldiers is there, shouts of praise and joy at her return lifting from the mass.

Taylor silently slips to the back of the welcoming committee, overjoyed to witness the smile on her face – her alive and happy face – as all of her unit and friends and co-workers greet her return. They move like the sea, ushering her back into the fold of Terra Nova and the next wave of well-wishers standing in the Commons.

All that he can do is stand back and absorb the reality of his life as he knows it. Not half an hour ago, he knew that he would have to usher through the new stage of life without her help; and now he can’t see it getting done without her there with him.

Thankfully he doesn’t have to anymore.

MEMORABLE:

There’s a moment about fifteen minutes after Taylor’s starts feeling his heart bearing again that will forever be burned into his mind. Wash is standing in the middle of friendly mass when little Zoe Shannon weaves through the crowd and thrusts herself against Wash’s legs. The little girl is stuck to his second like a limpet and there is nothing that Wash can do but pick her up and hold back, just as tight.

Taylor feels a burn in his throat as the girl that Wash died for bubbles with happiness at her ‘not dead’-ness.

And he sees her presence was missed by everyone. He wasn’t the only one with issues that she wasn’t there to help with, or the only one who expected to see her every morning on the Command Center deck every morning.

He wants to burn this into his skull, wants to remember that he is *not* the only person in this colony with an attachment to someone else within its confines. He needs to pay closer attention to those that he loses – even if he has no control over it.

The throng begins to shift again, a writhing group of happy citizens heralding the return of a hero and his Wash is still in the middle accepting heartfelt thanks for her actions and when he looks at her and can finally see her and see’s that she is ready to collapse at the next well-wishers feet.

“All right everyone!” his raises, in his command voice. “I know that everyone is happy to see the Lieutenant back from the dead,” his voice almost catches on that word, but he pushes through for her. “But she needs to be checked out by the Doc and then she needs to rest.”

He sees disappointment on a lot of faces and smiles at them all. Even though the rain is still pelting down, no one is noticing. But to his surprise, before he can order the men to spread the canvasses over the platform so that everyone can gather that night, Boylan raises his arms above the crowd and announces a drink for everyone on the house that night – a toast to the Lieutenant’s happy return.

Taylor tips his invisible hat to the bartender and smiles. For a fact, the night is going to prove memorable.

BROKEN:

She had thought that everything in her was broken. She had given everything that she had to make it through the jungle alive. And maybe she had.

Being greeted with a kiss like that from the very man that had dragged her through the jungle – if only by some imaginary ghost of him – has put everything back into its proper place inside of her. She bites her lip as she stares at herself in the mirror as the shower runs beside her and she examines the scrapes and bruises that Doc Shannon just scrutinized on her. She’s hale and hearty – is a little hungry – but there’s nothing to keep her back now.

“What’d Doc Shannon say?” That Taylor is standing in her bathroom doorway should surprise her, but she knew that he’d never be able to stay away from her till the evening after kissing her in the field.

She glances at him over her shoulder and smiles, lifting her left arm to look at the bruise running from the bottom of her arm down to her ribs when she’d hung on to a tree limb for her life. “That I’m ready for action.”

“Like hell you are. You just came back from the dead, Wash,” He looks like he wants to continue that sentence and she finally turns around to look at him. His nostrils flare as his jaw clenches together and he’s barely holding himself together, if there’s anything still attached in the first place. “You came back,” he whispers and suddenly he’s kissing her again.

This one tastes different from the caress in the field; there’s no desperation or frenzy attached to this. This one is relief and amazement, joy and complete adoration. She can’t get enough of the feel of him under her fingers and is touching him wherever she can until he breaks the kiss and buries his head in the crook of her neck and swallows her into his embrace by wrapping his arms around her waist and clutching her until she can barely breathe.

She’s not going to tell him that he’s hurting her ribs because she has never felt more vindicated or alive in her life. His breath is heavy and he mutters something into her neck.

“What?”

He lifts his head and looks her full in the eye. “I’m a broken old man, Wash, but I can’t do this without you.” 

A hand rises to rest against his cheek and she smiles at him. “Everything broken can be made whole again.”

He rests his head against her and stares into her and she feels something thunder along her ribcage. Then he smiles.

“It’s going to take a hell of a lot of glue and a lot of drying time. You prepared for that?”

MAZE:

He makes sure that she has plenty of time to sleep, posting Reynolds at her door to make sure that no one disturbs her and – admitting to no one – to keep her inside and resting. In an effort to make sure that she *could* attempt to rest, he sets himself the task of clearing his plate of any excess paperwork back at the Command Center.

It is near impossible to concentrate on the words in front of him, only getting some approvals signed and rotations agreed to in the five hours she has agreed to sleep. As the clock on the plex reads just after sunset, Taylor trashes any attempt to complete anything productive and heads down to Boylan’s where Wash is gathering with half of the colony.

It’s a maze of people to get to her, one he is more than willing to navigate if she is sitting at the end of it. Shannon is sitting to one side of her and Reynolds’s the other and Taylor uses his thumb to kick the younger man out of his designated perch.

She’s in the middle of explaining her escape from the Phoenix guard when he finally settles and she flashes him an amazing grin; a smile so full of life and laughter that he can do nothing but stare at her in awe as she weaves her tale. She’s a remarkable orator – learned it from him, he’s glad to say – and the entire audience is glued on her and her alone.

He thinks he can get away with it and, under the ploy of making room for another chair at the table; he’s almost flush against her. He’s so proud that she doesn’t bat an eye, even more admirable when she doesn’t flinch as his hand comes to rest on her thigh.

For a long moment, she’s using both hands to illustrate her narrative and then she leans back and drops her hand to her lap, under the rim of the table; and conveniently, directly over top of his. She’s pleasantly buzzed and is continuously brought drinks and food and she talks until all hours of the night.

Soon it’s only soldiers that are left and even they are showing signs of fatigue – and rue getting up for training in the morning. Taylor, feeling at peace and benevolent, waives mandatory training, but reminds those on duty to be up for shift.

The fledglings flee before the Commander changes his mind and Wash just looks at him with awe on her face.

“What? It’s mostly to prevent you from getting up and going to training because you and I both know that that’s exactly what you would do.”

PUBLIC:

Three weeks later, it is almost back to normal. Taylor finds her by his side as he walks the perimeter; in the driver’s seat OTG; in the background for every colony discussion. He asks her advice on handling the scientists and she asks his advice on handling the recalcitrant soldiers.

Not that they have many.

When the plex tells him it’s time to leave the Command Center, he does. There’s no question about it now; there are more important things to him – to the colony – than his never ending paperwork. He is more than willing to sacrifice his time for the mundane tasks that he knows must be done, but some of the things that he reads can definitely wait until the next morning.

There is nothing on his desk tonight that requires his immediate attention, so Taylor gladly drops it from his hands and allows it to lie in place until the next day.

As he steps from the interior of Command, he watches the bustle of the market; casts a glance to the nearest tower and then on out into the field before Terra Nova. His life has changed, he knows – for the better – but for the life of him, it doesn’t seem any different from before the Eleventh pilgrimage was designated to come.

He can see Wash just off the platform, talking with some of the shift guards, giving them last minutes instructions. Down the road, Guzman is coming on to shift with two other soldiers by his side. Maddy Shannon is talking with Reynolds, Skye and Josh are heading off to their jobs and hundreds of other people are settling in for another quiet night in Terra Nova.

He is at peace.

And he is a coward.

For three weeks he’s had her back at his side and there isn’t anything that he can do to make himself shatter their detente. It’s as close to public knowledge as it can get that they love each other – it just so happens that scientists are paid to observe and classify, catalogue and determine cause – and the fear of having his heart shattered like that day at the outpost sits heavily on his thoughts.

He has never had cause to classify himself as a coward – has even laughed in its face at certain times in his life – but this is entirely different.

And if the entire Colony knows it, accepts it and even agrees with it, he shouldn’t have a problem walking up to the woman he loves and telling her that he loves her.

SOMEDAY:

She knows that he’s having difficulty with this – this being their inevitable gravitational collide someday in the near future. She knows that he has never been a man of words but always, inherently a man of action. And she sees it in his actions every day. He defers to her; he asks her; he listens to her; he watches her.

How often in the last three weeks has she turned from talking with men of her unit to find him staring at her so intently from the command center that a shiver runs up her spine? It’s natural now, to find his icy eyes trailing her movements. 

She swallows an unfamiliar word in her throat as she waits for him to overcome whatever battle he is having with himself; ‘coward’ never was, never has and never will be used in association with the man currently standing watch over the marketplace.

But she can feel herself running out of patience. Her dreams are becoming as vivid as to make her pause in the mornings, situating her in the present before she has to head into the Command Center to face him. She knows that the dreams are just that, but her reality is competing and losing to the utter perfection of the future that her imagination/subconscious/dreams are offering her.

She clutches the butt of her gun a little tighter as she drops her gaze from his and then, with a swift dismissal and a last glance at the man staring now at his feet, heads off shift and towards her housing unit.

Someday. Soon.

MERCY: 

He finds himself at her threshold three days later. There is an inevitable tie between him and his second and no matter how long her waits, it’s not going to change. He’s admitted it to himself; hell, he’s admitted it to Shannon.

He caught Shannon and Wash talking today, saw their comfort and camaraderie in the shared smiles and laughs. They are closer since she has come back; more physical in their appreciation of each other; and he, the man who loves her, has yet to kiss her again.

It is a paralysis that needs to break, needs to die a thousand deaths to disappear.

Because there is nothing in his life that he wants more in that moment than to freely be able to greet her with a smile and kiss her good morning/afternoon/night. It’s his for the taking, he knows if only he can allow himself to throw his heart at her mercy; if he can risk the pain.

A pain he has felt not once, but twice. Only now, he can have the woman he loves after he’s felt the reality of her death.

It sure as hell didn’t change the fact that he loves her.

And suddenly, as she opens the door – apparently heading out somewhere else – his heart dips low in his chest and he knows that she can see it in his eyes. There’s no way that he would be able to hide the reality of his epiphany only seconds after having made it.

She stops, surprised to see him there and holds his gaze for a long moment. Within seconds, she has grabbed her comm., made her excuses to whomever she was about to meet and steps back into her unit.

COMMAND:

It’s a good start that he’s followed her inside, but then he continues to stare at her as if there is nothing else in his world.

It’s consuming, his gaze, and she starts to feel herself get fidgety. She hates being nervous more than she hates being out of control, both of which are very prominent feelings right at that moment. She purses her lips as she survey’s him, taut neck, clenched fingers, tight jaw; all the signs of a Commander very out of his element.

So she bites the nervousness off and folds her arms across her chest. She sighs heavily and then sternly commands, “Just say it.”

He opens his mouth and freezes again, his lips twitching as they snap shut.

She steps into him, her hands reaching out to rest against his ribs. She can feel his muscles twitching under her touch and, encouraged, she leans up into his mouth, stopping a breath away from kissing him like she wants nothing else in the world.

“Say it.”

The whisper flutters across his cheek and his eyes slip closed as finally, like the icebergs melting and the earth going around the sun, his words speak for themselves.

“I love you.” 

His confession is just as soft as her command, but no less pure. Having said it, something in him seems to come unstuck and his own hands move to clasp her waist, holding her tight and still.

“I love you,” he says it again with such a deep affection in his open eyes that tears spring to her own. It is a freedom for him; a freedom he hasn’t allowed him since Ayani had died and her happy for him – happy for herself to – because now, something else is allowed.

She can keep her dream.


End file.
